Obituary: Choreographer John Todd Dies

By Francisco Salazar

The LA Opera has announced that choreographer John Todd has died.

In a social media post the company announced the news stating, “We are so saddened to learn about the passing of director and choreographer, John Todd, who choreographed our 2016 run of “La Bohéme” and was an associate choreographer for several productions.”

Todd grew up in the Carolinas and trained at the North Carolina School of the Arts at the age of 16. He went on to direct and choreograph numerous commercials, industrials, musicals, and appeared in television.

He would then choreograph multiple episodes of “Days Of Our Lives” for NBC, an IKEA National Commercial, “Kiss Me Kate” at the Herod Atticus Theater in Athens, Greece and “Annie Get Your Gun” for San Diego Musical Theater.He worked as the director/choreography on Disney stage shows “The Jungle Book,” “The Good Dinosaur,” “Big Hero 6,” “Tangled,” “The Muppets Most Wanted,” “Sofia The First,” “Monster’s University,” “Jake and the Neverland Pirates,” “The Little Mermaid” and “Mulan.”

He also worked on commercials and choreographed a number of films including “Saving Mr. Banks,” and the TV shows “Mad Men,” and Marvel’s “Agents of Shield.”

Todd also worked extensively in the ballet world, performing with The Hungarian State Ballet, Houston Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Fort Worth Ballet and Hartford Ballet. He was also well-known on Broadway, taking on numerous roles in such plays as “Movin’ Out” and in “The Phantom of the Opera.”

In the opera world he worked with the LA Opera on numerous occasions as assistant director in Marta Domingo’s production of “La Rondine,” Vincent Patterson’s production of “Manon,” and Darko Tresjnak’s production of “Die Vogel.” He also worked as the choreographer on the acclaimed production of “La Bohéme.” He did one production with the LA Philharmonic and one production with the Pacific Symphony.

He also won a number of Stage Scene LA Awards and was nominated for the LA Weekly, Broadway World and Robbie awards.

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